Scars and Silence
by Amryn
Summary: Takes place after the great hiatus--some scars you can't erase. m/m slash


Disclaimer: I do not own this amazing canon nor could ever claim to write such amazingly gripping and adventurous stories. However, after the hiatus, I never felt that Holmes' and Watson's relationship that had irrevocably changed was ever truly addressed.

This is a random snippet I wrote one night when I was super angsty. Takes place sometime after Holmes' returns.

**Scars and Silence**

"Holmes." I felt his arm return to his side as he released me. He stepped back and I sensed him studying my face, reading what I had tried to so hard to conceal. But I couldn't hide it anymore. "I--"

"You don't need to say anything. It's my fault--I see that I've caused you pain far worse than you could ever have caused me."

I shivered at the echo of the words that were running through my own head, words that I had buried and never wanted to admit. Was the gulf between us now impassable?

"I see the spark is gone from your eyes, the ardor from your lips, the joy from your voice that I always looked forward to hearing welcome me home." Please don't continue I prayed, tears gathering to a dangerous level that threatened to spill down my cheeks in an unending torrent. But he did continue, as I knew he must. "And it's my fault. The reserve, the barriers you've erected through years of guilt and pain until you're too numb to discern if you still feel them at all. And it's all my doing, my cowardice and selfishness that drove me irrevocably from your arms."

'_But it's not too late!_' I wanted to shout, to reassure him that everything could return to the way it was, exactly the way it had been the moment we had left our flat for Switzerland on that damnable case. But I knew it would never be that way again--at the very least the memory would always remain as an indelible imprint upon both our hearts and minds. I knew as an army doctor that reinvervated nerves could assume their old pathways but they would never again accurately convey sensation to the same degree. Then what was left for us?

"I am so sorry my Watson. I--I wanted to return God knows how many times but the thought….the thought of you with _her_…" That weighted pronoun was no longer conveyed with as much blame and anger as it had before---when my dear Mary was still alive. The memory of her suddenly impressed the gravity of the situation upon my reeling mind and I knew that the next few moments would determine the future of our relationship.

"When she passed away, I realized for the first time the true extent of the place you had carved in my life." I said slowly, the words spilling out of me before I could stop them. "My world began and ended with you but it wasn't until she became ill that I realized the true disparity between the relationships I shared with you both. She was and will ever remain a wonderful woman and companion…but she knew, I think, even before I married her that she would never be anything more. That _more_, that everything else was reserved for you. And when you cut that out…." I regretted the last sentence as it was forced out of my throat like a knife but I couldn't, wouldn't take it back. The suddenness with which the most important person in my life had been taken from me had left me in a disbelieving stupor for months. I had drifted through the many irrational stages of grief seeming to favor denial and self-loathing the most. "When both you and Mary were gone I had…nothing. There was nothing worth living for. Yes, I saw the value in my services as a doctor and knew the efficacy of those services. My friends still validated my existence and tried to lift the ominous and suffocating cloud of depression that seemed to gather and coalesce within me. But there was nothing worth living for…._nothing._ I---"

"_Enough_!" Holmes seized my arm and with his right shoulder pushed me backwards propelling me into the center of the room with his lean, powerful frame. And with one swift movement he upset my center of balance knocking me off my feet as his right arm simultaneously shot out to catch me and gently lower me to the floor. "I know…I have taken up enough of your life, wasted enough irretrievable years as it is and I won't stand for it any longer. The pain I have caused, this pain--" He suddenly reached down and gripped my wrist, pulling my sleeve back with one sharp motion. One of the cufflinks was ripped off and dropped to the carpet.

"Holmes…" I said warily, trying to jerk my arm out of his vise-like grip. I knew what he would find, what I had unconsciously been concealing even though the opinions of others had long since ceased to matter. That fateful night was still a blur despite my best efforts to recall the details. All I remember distinctly is Microft shaking me awake, the cold flat expanse of the hardwood floor beneath me, and the chilling puddle of blood that had soaked through my dress shirt and solidified into a sickening second skin.

"A neat job, very clinical of you." He traced the scar wonderingly and I stared up at him in disbelief. I should have relished the familiar, lanky weight of his body over mine as he leaned forward to study the thin, perfectly straight line that traced a prominent vein in my arm.

"I---I'm sorry." I said, my cheeks burning as I lowered my eyes in shame.

"No--it is I who am sorry. I--the vaunted, emotionless puppet-detective who pushed you from me, who created tension between you and your wife, and then fled like a coward….and in the all-consuming selfishness of my actions nearly lost the most important and precious person who has given me more than I deserve." I saw the same demon I had wrestled with those three impossibly long years as it wrested for control of his emotions.

"Enough." It was I who said it this time but gently, with shared understanding. He had known, perhaps had always known, the presence of those scars. "I could say I did the same to you but we're past that now. I apologize then only for my weakness, for my premature self-defeat when I should have been stronger. But--" I pressed an imploring finger to his moist lips that I longed to kiss. "--we both have made mistakes. Perhaps, as the great detective and amazing man you are that might come as more of a shock to you than it does to me, but we have an advantage as both friends and…lovers." I said the last word slowly, letting the full weight of its intended meaning sink in as I registered the change in Holmes' eyes.

"Are you certain?" The press of his body against mine sagged and his defeated reserve slowly began to crumble.

"Do you even need to ask? Friendship is fragile and must be maintained through repeated discourse. But lovers…what we had and always will have can never be forgotten. All one need do is reignite the flame. If we can forgive each other for our transgressions, the extent and degree of which I'm afraid we will never come to agreement on, then there is a chance of moving forward. Of continuing where we left off." I raised my released arm and ran my now steady fingers along the sharp contour of his jaw. "Holmes--"

"Watson--" His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed purposefully, drawing out the moment of silence while he wrestled with his emotions. Finally his eyes cleared and he looked at me as he had never looked at me before, a penetrating, challenging stare that I wholeheartedly accepted and returned. "I _love _you John Watson. I always have…and I always will. The thought of losing you…just the _thought _is enough to destroy me. How you endured it for so long--"

I feared he would lose the battle he had been fighting so valiantly and I knew instantly what I had to do. I covered his lips with my own, locking him in an embrace that was both self-affirming and immediate. I feared I would suffocate him until he returned the embrace just as passionately, letting his body completely envelope mine. I still could not believe he had said what I had sworn over many rounds of ale that he would never ascent to no matter how relentlessly you tortured him.

"But I did and remain the same John Watson you have always known, just a little wiser." I returned simply after a few breathless moments, regretfully pulling back to look up at him as I felt I had always done--without deception or restraint.

"And yet…" He gripped my wrist again running a thumb along the spidery scar and I kissed his fingers as he drew me to him.

"And yet we both bear the marks of what we'll forgive but never truly forget. That is the way of everything I'm afraid and the thing I regret most is not being able to spare you from the trials of love which I expounded upon at great length more times than I should have. But life happens, people are thrown together and just as violently torn apart." I knew the truth of these words perhaps more than Holmes did but my intent wasn't to lecture. It was to empathize and reassure that complications and mistakes were part of the natural process of growing close to someone and despite your best efforts they could never be completely avoided.

"I've reduced you to being as thin as a schoolboy." Holmes said, unable to erase every trace of regret from his voice but I could detect the marked improvement from his previously guilt-ridden confessions. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me passionately, as if in confirmation that I was his, and his I would remain.

"The years have not been kind to either of us. One last thing I will confess before we shall both happily forget our pasts is that I wasn't as strong as I should have been. It was so easy to fold and simply give up…but that will never happen again." I gripped his sinewy arms and waited until his steel-grey eyes met mine.

"No….never again."


End file.
